Chained (Jennifer Lynch, 2012)

Following the brilliant Surveillance of 2008, this is Jennifer Lynch's grim and brutal depiction of a life without a conscience and its need for the total sublimation of a young victim. If you can't earn love, or don't understand how to go about it, terror and intimidation will suffice. As Dr Hare, the world's leading forensic psychiatrist's said: “If they're not in prison, they're in the boardroom ..." or, in this case, living ordinary lives with someone imprisoned in the basement.

Though fictional, much of the action seems unadorned by fantasy, and it's impossible not to inhabit the role of the victim and to try and make desperate choices for him. What is an additional torment to watch is the changing psychology of the enslaved victim. Uncomfortable viewing from the start, but always gripping, and further proof to me of what an exciting film maker Jennifer Lynch is. I wish she'd make a horror film every year.